Quotes by Soren Kierkegaard

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.

The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.